What is 2013.cascadiajs.com?

This repository is the proposal submission system for CascadiaJS 2013, a JavaScript conference held in Vancouver, BC for developers in the Pacific Northwest. Instead of using a traditional web form or email to collect speaker applications, the organizers built their call-for-speakers process entirely around GitHub. Anyone who wanted to present a talk at the conference submitted their proposal by modifying this repository and sending a pull request. To submit a talk, a developer would create a copy of the repository, add a markdown text file containing their presentation details, and include a small profile photo. The proposal file needed to include their name, talk title, description, and bio. Once everything was committed, they would submit a pull request to notify the organizers and send a quick introductory email. The organizers would then review submissions and respond to everyone, whether accepted or not. The project is aimed at JavaScript developers and community members who wanted to speak at the conference, whether they were experienced presenters or first-timers. The organizers specifically emphasize that you don't need to be a JavaScript celebrity to submit, and they cover travel and accommodations for accepted speakers. They were looking for talks covering the open web, including browsers, Node.js, tooling, and related topics, but explicitly excluded vendor pitches. All talks were 30 minutes, and they also welcomed looser unconference topic ideas. What makes this approach notable is how it turns a static code repository into a lightweight application system. By requiring pull requests, the organizers filtered for people with at least basic familiarity with version control, while keeping the submission process transparent and collaborative. Contributors could revise their proposals up until the August 15, 2013 deadline, and the repository itself served as a public record of every talk idea submitted.